The Sunday Haul (on 14-09-2025)

 

It was quite a surprise that it did not rain almost all day last Sunday as there was a forecast of heavy rain for a couple of days, and also since it had rained quite heavily the day before, on Saturday evening. I was pleased that the weather gods were kind as I set out for Abids. As usual I stopped at Chikkadpally and found three good titles. 

The first find of the day was a nice copy of ‘Japan: The Story of a Nation’ by Edwin O. Reischauer with an attractive golden yellow cover with a painting of flowers. The size was also different as it was narrower than the usual sizes that books come in. 

With another seller down the road I found two wonderful titles I did not expect to find. Sometime back I had found a copy of ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann’s Way’ and realized that it would be impossible to find the other volumes. But miracles happen and last Sunday I found copies of Volumes I and II of ‘In Search of Lost Time’ by Marcel Proust- ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume II: Within a Budding Grove’ and ‘In Search of Lost Time Volume III: The Guermantes Way’. I was delighted that I found these wonderful titles and at the same time felt alarmed that put together they run into hundreds of pages that I would never find the time to read unless I put aside everything and read these. 

Another title I picked up was a copy of ‘Looking for Maya’ by Atima Srivastava that had an attractive cover, and also because I felt I had read the author’s name somewhere long time back. I picked up as it was a Penguin title. This book was a British Library discardd.dI got it for fifty rupees.